India is facing a growing energy crisis as projections indicate the country's power demand could surge 11-fold by 2070, raising serious concerns about sustainability, environmental impact, and economic feasibility. Recent warnings from the Grid Operator of India about "high-risk" power shortages in the coming months, coupled with expert predictions of a 9-10% demand increase in 2025, highlight the urgent challenges in balancing development needs with ecological preservation.
Power and climate policy analyst Shankar Sharma cautions that "the initial knee-jerk reaction to such projections has been to lobby for massive additions to power generation capacity, without adequately considering the environmental and social costs." Meeting this escalating demand would require unprecedented investments, including an estimated Rs. 15 lakh crore for nuclear power expansion and trillions more for coal-based plants and transmission infrastructure. However, this approach comes with severe environmental consequences, including accelerated deforestation - with India losing 120,000 hectares of primary forest between 2014-19 - and irreversible damage to ecologically sensitive areas like the Western Ghats, which saw 58.22 square kilometers of forest cover disappear in a decade.
The absence of a comprehensive national energy policy, despite a draft being circulated in 2017, has led to continued reliance on conventional energy sources while renewable alternatives lag behind. "Our planners seem blind to global evidence that rooftop solar PV could supply two-thirds of the world's energy needs while lowering temperatures," Sharma notes. "Instead, we continue with outdated, high-impact projects." This is particularly concerning as international examples demonstrate the potential of renewable energy, with China adding wind and solar capacity equivalent to 357 nuclear plants in just one year.
The situation presents a critical dilemma for India's development trajectory. While the OECD has found that climate action can actually boost economic growth, India's current approach risks locking the country into environmentally damaging infrastructure for decades to come. The draft National Resource Efficiency Policy of 2019 warned against the "indiscriminate exploitation" of natural resources, linking it directly to climate change, land degradation, and biodiversity loss. As Sharma emphasizes, "If authorities continue failing to protect our environment, the onus shifts to civil society and media to hold them accountable. Without intervention, vulnerable communities will bear the worst impacts of climate change."
With India already experiencing increasingly severe climate impacts - from deadly heatwaves to devastating floods - the country faces difficult choices about how to meet its energy needs without exacerbating environmental degradation. The coming years will be crucial in determining whether India can transition to a more sustainable energy future or become trapped in an unsustainable cycle of escalating demand and environmental destruction.
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